


6-A Simple Twist of Fate

by WritestuffLee



Series: The Warrior's Heart, Volume 3, What Was Old is New Again [6]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-02
Updated: 2001-01-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:43:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritestuffLee/pseuds/WritestuffLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naboo. A little swashbuckling gone horribly wrong. Heroism. Consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	6-A Simple Twist of Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Not a songfic, despite the title. Series veers here into AU.

Qui-Gon lay unmoving where he had fallen, sprawled untidily, entirely unlike himself.

_Can’t be dead,_ Obi-Wan thought blankly again and again, _Can’t, can’t, can’t,_ like a chant as he stumbled, chest heaving with exertion, knees weak with terror and shock, toward the man he loved. Somewhere he dropped Qui-Gon’s saber. At some point, he began to run. Knees buckled. He slid the last meter on them, nudged his master with them, then pulled the great shaggy head onto them. //No. No, Master. No!// No breath for words, he cried out across their bond.

Qui-Gon’s eyes fluttered, opened, looked up at him without focus. Obi-Wan lay his hand over the entry wound, could feel heat and Qui-Gon’s life seeping from it, smell shit and cauterized blood, charred flesh, burnt cloth. The wound was almost perfectly centered, had probably severed his spine after going through his intestines, he thought dimly. That would explain how he’d collapsed so bonelessly . . .

“Master!” he gasped.

“Too late, my young Padawan.” A smiled touched his lips, fled. So calm. So damned calm.

“No!” There was more pain in Obi-Wan’s voice than his master’s—a small gift.

“Now you must be ready, whether the Council thinks you so or not.” Qui-Gon’s voice was so faint, as though he were already far away. “You must be the teacher.” A stab of agony contorted his features for a brief moment, then it too fled, leaving desperation behind. “Obi-Wan—promise me you will train the boy—”

“No! I will not, Qui-Gon. I will not!” he said fiercely, adamantly, defiantly. “You must. You will. You can’t leave me. Not now. I won’t let you go—”

Qui-Gon seemed not to hear him. Hand trembling, he reached up, fingertips brushing Obi-Wan’s cheek. “He is the chosen one, Obi-Wan. He will bring balance to the Force.” His master’s blue eyes were wells of blackness now, the pupils blown. Obi-Wan knew he saw nothing but what the Force revealed to him. So certain he was, here at the end, of the gift he had ever mistrusted in his apprentice. “Train him well,” he whispered on his last breath. His features went still, his limbs slack. His chest fell and did not rise again.

Last breath.

His last breath had been for that boy. Not for him, not for his lover and companion and padawan of 13 years. For that interloper Anakin.

Rage filled him as it had when Qui-Gon had been struck down, coupled this time with jealousy. Unthinking, unwilling this time to bridle it, he surged across the bond between them, tenuous as it was now, determined to drag him back, make him answer for that slight.

_//Gods damn you, Qui-Gon Jinn! Damn your chosen one! Damn the order, damn all of it! I won’t lose you! I’ll follow you to whatever Sith hell awaits you!//_

Elsewhere, his hands—moving of their own accord, found both entrance and exit wounds and sealed them, as though trying to hold Qui-Gon’s spirit to his body.

_//Go, Obi-Wan. Let me go,//_ his master’s voice came to him, though he could see nothing, hear nothing, feel only his own grief and the residual pain in the shell of Qui-Gon’s body, taste only his own tears and bitterness, smell only the stench of his master’s death. _//It’s my time, love.//_

_//No! Not by all the Sith hells! I’ll turn before I’ll lose you. I’ll be another Xanatos. I’ll leave the order without you. Do you hear me? I’ll leave, Qui-Gon, and waste every precious moment of your training. Let the Jedi have their chosen one. Let them find him a teacher. It won’t be me. Not without you.//_

With that Obi-Wan poured everything of himself, everything he could command into the lifeless body he held, opening himself to the Living Force as he had—they had, together—years ago when they had first become lovers. Holding each other, joined in body and spirit, they had cast themselves into the Force, building something powerful enough to expunge the taint of death, seeing into one another’s hearts more clearly than they ever had before or since. Now his lover had done the same, without him, and Obi-Wan would not have it.

In all truth, he had never opened himself so fully before. It was like an electric current, the power of it coursing through him, pouring into Qui-Gon. He felt himself swept up in it and dragged along whether he would or no, as though it were a rushing torrent he had stepped into. His own heart faltered for a moment with the strength of it and he had to fight to stay conscious. _Focus!_ he demanded more harshly than Qui-Gon had ever demanded of him, feeling himself precariously holding on to his own sense of self, his own life.

What grounded him, finally, were his master’s injuries. The red blade had done as much damage as he feared, perforating his intestines, nicking pancreas and liver and, worst of all, severing his spine. The wound was dirty but not bloody, or should not have been, not with everything so neatly cauterized. But there was far more blood than one usually saw with lightsaber or blaster wounds, and shock and blood loss had stolen Qui-gon’s life, and his own inability or unwillingness to fight it. There was nothing else to be done but go after him. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure it was possible to open himself any further, to let more of himself go and be able to return. But the returning didn’t really matter, though he found he wanted that most of all. In the end, it was only finding Qui-Gon again, being with him, that mattered. If this was the only way to do it, so be it.

He let go.

A rushing silence filled his head, as of a violent wind in treetops, and Obi-Wan found himself standing on a hilltop in darkness, the sky above him riotous with stars and aurorae rippling overhead, the land around him rolling and hidden in shadow. His cloak flapped in the wind, his braid snapped around his face like a whip. Qui-Gon stood before him, shatteringly beautiful, the Light within him so apparent now, clear and bright and perfect, a beacon in this dark land, brighter than the aurora was or any moon would have been, yet casting no light into the darkness. The illumination was only inward, not outward, and Obi-Wan could truly see his master more clearly than he ever had before. His unbound hair streamed out behind him like wind-driven pennons. The same wind pressed his tunic to him like the weight of water, so it clung to every line of his unbroken, unscarred body. He seemed younger to Obi-Wan, though it was the same silvered bronze hair, the same weathered face he had always known—only, he realized suddenly, much less care-worn, and unmarred by any fault or weakness. He’d never seen his master so tranquil. His hands were clasped as they would have been inside his cloak and his easy stance spoke of a deep serenity, as though he were finally where he belonged.

They regarded each other with a calm Obi-Wan, for one, did not feel. Time was fleeting. Qui-Gon’s mortal flesh was dying, oxygen deprived, bloodless; the anchor to his own body was slipping. If they were to come back, it would have to be soon. If not—well, then these few moments would not matter.

_//You cannot follow me here, love,//_ his master said gently.

_//I will. Stay or go. I will be with you.//_

_//You have another destiny—//_

_//Don’t speak to me of destinies, My Master,//_ he spat. _//I will not see your body on a pyre. This is what my vision showed me: the two of us together beyond this moment, growing old with one another. My destiny lies with you. I will make it so, one way or another. Either you will live or I will die with you. Choose, Qui-Gon.//_

Silence filled them both, despair and longing coloring it—Obi-Wan’s despair, Qui-Gon’s longing both for the oneness with the Force he felt so deeply, and for his lover. Obi-Wan felt the two opposing desires warring within his master, the Force calling to him more powerfully than either knew how to counter—than Obi-Wan knew he had any right to counter. This was Qui-Gon’s very essence calling him, the Light within him, the Living Force, the thing they had touched together in the gardens, the source of all his master’s joy and peace. How could Obi-Wan deny him this?

It was walking in the Dark to do so. He saw that now.

But oh it hurt to lose him. And he could not. He had not the strength. For all Qui-Gon had taught him, this was the one thing he had not learned: how to go on alone.

_//Please, My Master. I beg you . . .//_ Almost weeping, Obi-Wan held out his hands.

Qui-Gon’s serene visage cracked then, the Light in him darkening somewhat, and it hurt Obi-Wan to see it, knowing he was the cause.

Finally, after what seemed interminable moments, Qui-Gon took the hands Obi-Wan held out to him, letting himself be led . . .

. . . back to the most searing pain he’d ever known—and the touch of his lover, soothing it. He lay on his side, head in Obi-Wan’s lap, the younger man’s hands pressed to the exit and entry wounds as he made himself a conduit for the Living Force. Qui-Gon felt it pouring into him, shoring up his tentative heart and stunned and failing body, willing him to live. And he could taste his lover’s essence in it. Obi-Wan was giving himself, not just as a conduit, but giving part of himself, willing Qui-Gon alive with everything he had.

“No, love—” he gasped. Gods it hurt to talk. Hurt to breathe. Hurt to live. “Not . . . so much.” It hurt more to feel Obi-Wan pouring his own young life into this old, broken flesh.

His apprentice seemed not to hear him. Qui-Gon tried to move away, found his legs dead, useless weights, his arms too weak to do more than twitch and jerk. Where had his strength gone? He remembered then the Sith draining it from him, slowing his reactions, making him stumble as though sucking the very life out of him. It had done the same on Tatooine when only Obi-Wan’s quick thinking and Ric Olie’s excellent piloting had saved him. He’d been such a fool to go against it alone again.

_//Qui—don’t fight me! Focus.//_ Obi-Wan’s urgency helped somehow, gave him something to cling to besides his own sense of precariousness and the pain. He let himself feel his lover’s strong heart beating, and Obi-Wan’s determination to live was like an anchor for both of them.

The Living Force poured into him until his own heart beat more steadily and in time with Obi-Wan’s and his lungs worked in tandem with his lover’s breathing, until the pain was a constant, throbbing, agonizing burn, telling him he was alive, and still Obi-Wan gave of himself. His apprentice filled him with his own fierce love, his youth and strength and power until it seemed it would drain him, the very antithesis of what the Sith had done. Neither was certain it would be enough, and Obi-Wan was weakening. _//Qui, hold . . . on . . . to me.//_

The young man swayed dizzily, his breathing harsh, face transparently pale and sheened in sweat, and finally toppled over, still holding his master. Qui-Gon followed him down into unconsciousness.

Captain Panaka and the Queen’s guards found them thus entwined a short while later, the one deeply unconscious, the other not far from death.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan woke wondering if he were in a bacta tank. He felt weightless, drowsy, disinclined to move or even open his eyes. He wondered, for a moment, what had happened, what he was doing here. Where “here” was.

Cool fingers touched his forehead, spanned his temples, and a wave of warm energy flowed through him. He opened his eyes as the touch withdrew, found himself looking into a familiar face in unfamiliar surroundings.

“Ti?” he croaked, voice rusty, looking up at the flash of white teeth in the charcoal-dark face of his friend and yearmate Tianna Iolan.

A straw touched his lips and he drank a few sips, tried again. “Where are we?” he asked, voice sounding more like himself.

“Still on Naboo, Ow,” she told him, using her old nickname for him. “How do you feel?”

Naboo. A chill went through him, accompanied or perhaps set off by sudden blind terror. “Qui—” he gasped. “Where’s Qui-Gon?”

He tried to flail himself upright, but Tianna caught and held him as though he were a child, pushed him back down onto the pallet, shushed him gently, stroked his hair. “He’s all right, Ow. He’s in a bacta tank right now. He’ll be fine. Lie still and rest,” she admonished in her best healer’s voice.

Obi-Wan sank back onto the pallet with a shiver, feeling what little strength he’d had flow out of him again as the adrenalin surge metabolized itself. He felt vaguely ill from it, and from the memories. He could sense Qui-Gon nearby, feel the unnaturally quiescent spot in his own consciousness where his master’s presence always was, and though the signal across their bond seemed much stronger than usual, there was little information in it. Qui-Gon simply was, and that was all he knew.

“I need to see him,” he insisted more quietly.

“Turn your head.” Tianna touched his chin, guiding.

And there he was, through an internal connecting window, hardly recognizable, a vaguely humanoid shape in a clear cylinder, looking as though he were a laboratory specimen in preservative. His hair was tied back loosely at the nape of his neck and there were tubes and catheters and sensors everywhere. The wounds were still all too obvious, though just as obviously healing. He looked dead, but Obi-Wan could feel the trickle of life in him. It seemed too small for such a large man.

“Oh gods Qui,” he murmured, throat closing, eyes prickling with tears.

Tianna stroked the back of her knuckles over his cheek. “He’ll be all right, Ow. Thanks to you, I suspect.”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad enough that he should be dead.”

“His spine—”

“It’s a clean cut, and not all the way through. The neurons should regenerate just fine. He’ll need time to get steady on his feet again, and more of it to be up to par, but there shouldn’t be any problems in the long run. What was it? It doesn’t look like any blaster I’ve ever seen.”

“A lightsaber,” he said through gritted teeth.

She gawked at him. “What—?”

“A Sith’s lightsaber. Lightstaff, double-ended. Red. I cut it in half. But not before it— I couldn’t stop— He went ahead without me! He wouldn’t wait! We’re a team, he knows that. The fool wouldn’t wait . . .”

He felt the grip of strong fingers at his shoulder, heard at a distance behind his anger and fear Tianna’s soothing voice hushing him once more, felt himself go boneless and calm and surrendered to it gratefully, and slept.

 

* * *

 

He was three more days abed, regaining his strength. When he woke again in a less agitated state, Tianna told him he had been unconscious, nearly comatose himself, when she and her master had arrived some days after the fact, that he’d been found that way with Qui-Gon in the power plant. The palace medical staff had seen to Qui-Gon, first, since Obi-Wan himself seemed in no immediate danger, but they had not been able to wake him.

“Where were you in there?” she asked him curiously, tapping his head with a knuckle.

“Not there at all,” he answered, dodging, uncertain he could explain. In all truth, he had been with Qui-Gon, more intimately than ever before, inside his body in a way so far surpassing what they’d had in the gardens that he wondered if he would ever again be able to totally separate his own feelings and thoughts and perceptions from his master’s. Even now, with Qui-Gon comatose in the tank, he knew what his lover and master became aware of in his rare and short moments of lucidity. In between passing out in the power station and waking here, he not been truly unconscious, only unaware of anything but himself and his master, and had held Qui-Gon’s life force to him, sheltering it like a firestarter’s coal, feeding it with his own to sustain it. As a consequence, there seemed to be some strange new link between them, much stronger than their training bond. He wondered if it would last, or if it were only a temporary thing. Some part of him wanted it to remain.

Physically, he felt as though he had been fighting all that time, and was drained and exhausted and sore. He supposed, in a sense, that it had been a fight, trying to keep them both here. He felt Qui-Gon’s wounds even now, but before they had both retreated from the outside world, the pain had been so excruciating that the only way to escape it was to shield himself in the Unifying Force, and step back from the Living Force that was flowing through them both like water. He’d been able, eventually, to pull Qui-Gon behind those shields with him, but the sight of his master’s face twisted with pain would stay with him for some time. All of it would.

The dreams were bad this time, as they often were after a hard mission, when visions of the recent past returned to haunt him in sleep. But these were worse than most. The sight of that red blade passing into Qui-Gon’s body so easily and his master collapsing in a heap at the thing’s feet returned again and again. And the face of the creature who had done it seemed ready-made for nightmares, as though it were some archetype of horror come to life. Obi-Wan woke shouting in rekindled fear several times a night, only to have Tianna or her master or one of the palace medical staff ease him back into sleep with a touch of the Force, or when he woke very agitated, a dose of tranquilizer. The visions were fewer in the daylight hours and he was grateful for whatever sleep he could snatch then.

Worse by far, however, were his memories of following Qui-Gon into the Force and watching the Light fade in him as he followed his apprentice back. Though he woke quietly from them, they were far more disturbing than the nightmare-visions of the Sith or the memories of Qui-Gon’s pain, and more likely to wake him in tears. He began to wonder if he had done the right thing, bringing Qui-Gon back. He had been so at peace in that place. Nor did it help that his motives for doing so were anything but pure. If he were able to say he had brought Qui-Gon back for the boy, for the good of the order, because it wasn’t his time—anything but his own selfish reasons—it would have been easier to bear the memory of the Light dimming in his lover. In that place, Qui-Gon had been radiant, beautiful, filled with the goodness Obi-Wan had always known in him, and it was as if he had somehow stained it by bringing him back. He wondered if Qui-Gon would forgive him for it.

Within days of the planet’s liberation, half of the Council—most of them Qui-Gon’s friends—as well as Tianna and her master, had arrived on Naboo, but the Council waited until Obi-Wan was ambulatory to hear his report. He gave them the severed halves of the Sith’s lightstaff, surrendered Qui-Gon’s saber reluctantly to Master Windu, and felt entirely bereft without it or one of his own. He would have to build another now that his own was lost to the melting pit, and that would have to wait until their return to Coruscant and the Temple. The Council listened silently, asked him a few questions, and went back to Coruscant, all but Masters Windu and Yoda.

And such odd things they asked him too, he thought, reflecting on it later as he lay in the sun in a small garden off the medical wing.

“How felt you when Qui-Gon injured was?” Yoda had inquired.

“Afraid. Angry,” he’d told them truthfully.

“And when you killed the Sith?” Master Windu had added, scrutinizing his reactions and the way he held himself.

“Nothing, at first, My Master. Then relief. Then fear for my master. Perhaps I should have felt regret, but I think not.”

“And why did you kill it, Padawan Kenobi?” Plo Koon had asked him.

“Why, My Master?” Obi-Wan had repeated stupidly. In truth it seemed a ridiculous question, even now. It was always folly to second guess a battle like this if one had not witnessed it.

“Yes, Padawan. It would have been well had you taken it prisoner. Perhaps not possible, but useful.”

“I killed in defense of myself and my master. I killed something whose only purpose was itself to kill. I’ve never felt such evil. It was like killing a mad, vicious animal. There would have been no reasoning with it, no other option. I doubt very much I could have taken it prisoner.”

“So you killed it because you had to. Not for the sake of vengeance?”

“I—” Obi-Wan had started to answer, then stopped himself, searching his feelings. “Not in the end,” he had said truthfully.

“Were you guided by the Force in this, Padawan Kenobi?”

“Yes, Master Koon. I do not believe I could have defeated it if I were not. It was well-trained and strong in the Dark Side.”

“Indeed it was, to wound your master so,” Master Piell had agreed, sadly.

He said nothing to this, though he hadn’t yet expunged his own anger at Qui-Gon for charging ahead alone against the thing. They would have to have a talk about that, they would.

“How came you to lose your saber, Kenobi?” Piell had pressed him. It was, after all, the ultimate humiliation for a Jedi.

“My own weakness, My Master,” Obi-Wan had admitted without hesitation, but much inward flinching. “I gave in to my fears and my anger when Qui—when my master was struck down. I fought without clarity of purpose, without full contact with the Force. The Sith knocked me into the melting pit and I lost my weapon saving myself. It was my master’s weapon I used to kill it.”

“And your master,” Yoda had said gently, “save him how did you?”

Of course Yoda would have known Qui-Gon, his own padawan, was dying, would have felt him joining the Force. Obi-Wan had realized with that question that Yoda had also probably been aware of his struggle to bring Qui-Gon back.

“I went after him,” Obi-Wan had answered. He hadn’t known how else to say it, still didn’t. “Into the Living Force.”

Yoda had nodded, apparently understanding, the wise and piercing blue eyes studying him. “Why?”

“Because I love him.” That had been the simple truth. With that, he had been dismissed.

Now, he wondered what it all meant, that questioning of his heart and actions and motives, something the Council rarely did in the course of a report. It made him a little afraid, but he was too tired to worry for long, and slept again.

His days following the Council’s grilling were a haze of fatigue and dozing in the quiet medical wing of Naboo’s palace, sometimes in the sun in the garden but more often near Qui-Gon in his tank. Amidala came to visit when her duties allowed, sometimes in her guise as Padme, when Anakin accompanied her. The boy seemed uneasy around him, and Obi-Wan had not the energy to find out why, or to look after him as he knew he should for his master. Amidala assured him he was being well-cared for, and Anakin agreed, but the boy was obviously worried and upset. Well, that made two of them.

 

* * *

 

Qui-Gon was just shy of two tenths in the tank before they finally decanted him for the final time and settled him, still lightly comatose, in a comfortable room in the medical wing. Very gradually, they fiddled with his blood chemistry until his brainwave patterns were sleep-normal again, and left him under Obi-Wan’s watchful eyes to wake on his own. Anakin soon appeared and asked to join him.

Obi-Wan watched the boy almost as much as he watched his master. He was scrupulously polite with Obi-Wan, but hardly friendly, and seemed, in fact, a little afraid of Qui-Gon’s apprentice. But for a nine-year-old, Anakin was capable of amazing patience. He sat as quietly in the room’s other chair as if he were meditating, aware of any slight movement Qui-Gon might make, but obviously lost in thought. Finally, after nearly an hour, when Obi-Wan was beginning to think him inhuman, the boy’s patience ran out.

“Is he going to wake up soon, Jedi Kenobi, ser?”

“It might be some hours yet, Anakin,” he murmured gently, in a voice just above a whisper. It seemed likely he and the boy were going to be in each other’s pockets for some time, so Obi-Wan thought he should try to allay some of Anakin’s fears, most of all of himself. “Shall I have someone call you as soon as he does? You needn’t sit and wait. I’ve sure Master Jinn would understand.”

The boy looked torn—and a little suspicious.

“You’re not just trying to get rid of me, are you?”

“No, Ani. It’s just hard to sit and wait like this, I know. It’s hard for me, and I remember what it was like to sit still for so long at your age.” _I sound like Qui pretending he’s an old man,_ he thought with some amusement.

“Will he be all right now?”

“So the healers say,” Obi-Wan replied. Anakin frowned and he realized that wasn’t much reassurance. “I’m sure he will be. Only it will take him some time to get on his feet again. The nerves in his spine have regenerated and reconnected, but they’re not working quite as they should be yet. Some of them have forgotten exactly how to do what they did before.”

“You mean he’ll have to learn to walk again?” The boy looked frightened at the idea.

That was an intelligent question from a child his age. “Not exactly. But it will take him some time to do it with the same coordination.” _To learn that graceful prowl again._ “And to regain his strength. He’s had some very serious injuries.”

“Will we be going back to Coruscant, ser?”

“Yes, eventually. I’m not sure when. Much depends on the speed of Master Jinn’s recovery. Really, Anakin, you needn’t stay. It’s likely to be some time before he wakes. I promise I’ll have someone tell you as soon as he’s awake.”

Anakin left his chair and came to stand beside Obi-Wan’s, their eyes nearly at a level. The boy looked into the young Jedi’s eyes unflinchingly, said with a frank honesty too old for his nine-year-old soul, “You don’t like me much, do you, ser?”

The words cut Obi-Wan with the hurt behind them, well-hidden as it was, all the more because they had been true. Had been. The boy was perceptive, no doubt of it. Too perceptive for his own good. It would be hell to train him, and it was task Obi-Wan knew he was not equal to. The least he could do was make amends. He slid from the chair onto his knees and bowed to Anakin, touching his forehead to the floor.

“You shame me, Ser,” he murmured, sitting up on his heels again and meeting Anakin’s now-puzzled gaze with one just as forthright. “I have wronged you. I have been rude and unkind to you out of my own fear. I beg your pardon, Anakin Skywalker.”

For all that perceptiveness, Obi-Wan’s words seemed to puzzle him. “You were afraid of me?”

“I was afraid you would take my place in Master Jinn’s heart.” That seemed to do little to clear things up, so Obi-Wan went on, trying to explain, not certain he could. Jealousy was such an absurd and yet visceral emotion. “Being a Jedi apprentice is like being your master’s son or daughter, in many ways. I was just a few years older than you when Master Jinn first took me on, and he was very reluctant to do so. So it took me some time to realize he really did want to train me, really did care about me. When he told the Council he would train you, he had said nothing of it to me beforehand, and my first thought—wrong as it was, and just plain silly as it was—was that he was abandoning me, for you.”

Anakin listened solemnly, looking more and more unhappy. “I never wanted to be any trouble to you, or to Master Jinn.”

Obi-Wan stroked the boy’s silky pale hair. “I know that, Ani. Nothing of what I felt or what Master Jinn said or didn’t say was your fault. I’ve been Master Jinn’s padawan for thirteen years now. We’ve lived together, hardly ever been apart for more than a few days. We’ve learned to love and respect one another in that time, as most masters and padawans do. Sometimes, with a very few, that love and respect becomes something more. Something different and stronger. So it did with us. I was simply afraid to lose that.”

“If it’s stronger, how could I take your place? I might not even be his whatchacallit. The Council won’t let me.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “His padawan learner. And of course, you’re right, Ani, about taking my place. I should have known that. And Master Jinn should perhaps have been a bit more diplomatic about telling the Council he would train you. Because you will be his padawan. I have no doubts about that. Qui-Gon Jinn does as he will, Council or no, when he feels the Force is guiding him, and he feels very strongly he was guided to you for just that reason.”

“But they said he can’t have two at a time.”

“I will probably be taking my own Trials soon, and becoming a knight myself, I hope. Then Master Jinn will be free to take another padawan.”

“If he’s okay,” the boy said, looking at the still figure on the pallet. Obi-Wan was not surprised to sense fear in the child; what surprised him was that it was not for himself or his own future. It was, like his own, for Qui-Gon.

“He’ll be all right now, Ani. The worst of it is over. It will be some time before he’s himself again, but he’s in no danger now.”

“But he almost died, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did.”

The boy looked it him with that same frank stare, eyes narrowing. “You wouldn’t let him, would you?”

“No, Ani. I wouldn’t. It wasn’t his time. He should be the one to train you.”

“That’s not the only reason you wouldn’t let him die though,” the boy said with disconcerting shrewdness.

“No, it’s not. I didn’t want to lose him, either. I love him very much.” For a brief moment, he opened his shields and let his love for Qui-Gon fill him and wash over Anakin. The boy’s eyes went wide and he shivered a little, hugging himself, then grinned.

“That’s how I feel about him, Ani,” Obi-Wan said softly.

“Wow!” he whooped, then shot a guilty glance at Qui-Gon, who stirred a little. “I think I understand now, Knight Kenobi, ser,” he said in a whisper, and darted forward to hug Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan returned it, only a little surprised, and more at the suddenness of it than the gesture itself. Qui-Gon was usually right about the tagalongs he collected. “It’s okay. I guess I would have been worried about me too, if I’d been you.” Anakin looked away again, back at the pallet where his future lay sleeping. “And I understand why. He’s really great. I mean, he’s really a great man, too, isn’t he? It’s hard not to love him.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’m glad you saved him. I don’t think you’d be the right teacher for me, ser.”

Again, Obi-Wan was struck by the boy’s perceptiveness and oddly charmed by his honesty as he hadn’t let himself be before. Well, his outrageous midichlorian count and nine years as a slave had obviously provided and honed those skills.

“I think you’re quite right about that, Ani. I hope, however, that we can be friends. I am very sorry I hurt your feelings. I was wrong to take my fears out on you. Can we start again?” Obi-Wan held out a hand.

Without any hesitation, Anakin took it. “Pleased to meet you, Jedi Kenobi, ser.”

“And I you, Anakin Skywalker,” he smiled. It was one of the few bright spots in the entire Naboo fiasco.

Qui-Gon woke a few hours later. That was another.

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t certain what woke him—whether it was thirst, or the bar of sunlight from the window warming him, or the awareness of the carefully modulated ruckus of life that was his apprentice beside him—but all those things came to his conscious attention at about the same time his apprentice realized he was awake. Obi-Wan polarized the windows with a tendril of the Force and held a straw to Qui-Gon’s lips, stopping him before he drank too much.

“A little at a time, Master. You’ll make yourself ill. Let me send for Anakin. He’s been very worried about you.”

Gods it was sweet to hear his voice! He could almost hear it inside himself, feel it like another heartbeat pulsing through his body. And either the young man was barely bothering with his shields or Qui-Gon himself was unnaturally sensitive, but he was having difficulty sorting his own physical responses and emotions from Obi-Wan’s. That they were both exhausted, he had no doubt. He felt more lethargic than he’d felt in years, and weak as a newborn, with that slight disorientation in time and space that injuries and suspension in the bacta tank left one with. But whether the relief and joy coursing through him were all his own, he could not tell, any more than he could tell his own muscular aches from his apprentice’s.

“You look like hell, my love,” Qui-Gon blurted before he could stop himself. He did though, those beautiful blue-grey-green eyes bloodshot and rimmed with bruised and fragile skin, a pinched look to his face. And he felt, well, if not quite ill, then not quite well, either.

Obi-Wan only smiled. “Thank you, Master. It’s for a worthy cause.”

“Not sitting at my bedside, I hope,” he replied, coughing a little.

“Just so, My Master,” Obi-Wan confirmed, giving him a little more water. “How are you feeling?”

“Alive. Which is more than I should be.” He groped for his lover’s hand. Obi-Wan helped by grasping his master’s firmly between both of his own. “Thank you, but please don’t do it again, Padawan.”

“I hope never to have to, My Master. If the time ever comes, however, I shall keep my own counsel about what to do.”

“Impudent padawan,” Qui-Gon murmured, pulling the younger man toward him. No electricity when their mouths met, just solace and gratitude and a low-burning warmth—and the sweet taste of his lover, something he’d never thought to enjoy again, not so long ago.

“Gods, Qui, don’t frighten me like that again. Please.” Obi-Wan raised the hand he held and kissed the calloused palm, then leaned down to kiss his face again, tenderly, his lips, his cheek, his forehead, his eyes.

“I shall try to become one with the Force peacefully in my bed in the distant future,” Qui-Gon murmured softly against his cheek, rubbing lightly against it, vaguely aware that Anakin had entered the room and was watching with barely contained impatience. “You smell too good to leave so precipitously.”

Obi-Wan laughed a little sharply, surprised and amused, then choked, the laughter unleashing other emotions, and Qui-Gon felt himself flooded with his apprentice’s fear and grief and relief, as strongly as if it were his own, as though all Obi-Wan’s shields had indeed disappeared. His breath hitched in his chest as his padawan fought for control, and he reached up and brought the young man’s forehead down to his own, gripping his padawan tail as though it were a collar, his hand shaking with the effort.

“Stop it,” he growled. “I’m all right.”

“You bastard,” Obi-Wan snarled back, startling them both with the intensity of his anger, and alarming Anakin. “What in all the Sith hells did you think you were doing running ahead like that? Don’t you ever do that to me again. Do you hear me?”

“That’s enough, Obi-Wan! You forget yourself,” Qui-Gon rattled him by the scant handful of hair he gripped with what little strength he had. It amounted to a jostle a kitling wouldn’t have noticed. “I am still your master.”

“Not for long, you old fool,” Obi-Wan retorted. “Not if you act like that.” He yanked himself out of Qui-Gon’s grip, which took little effort and cost him only a few strands of hair and . . . and stood shaking beside his master’s bed, obviously appalled at himself and his loss of control.

Yet it was truth. Truth and they both knew it.

Still, the words hung between them, foul and almost palpably wrong in their disrespect and insubordination. Strange that Qui-Gon felt neither disrespected nor defied. What he felt was a confusing array of emotions, not all of which were his own and which he could neither sort out nor bring under any control. The only truly clear feeling was love and its accompanying terror of loss, and it flowed between them as their deepened bond did.

Exhausted and overwhelmed by the torrent of emotions coursing through his apprentice and through himself, Qui-Gon closed his eyes and turned away. “Go. Come back when you can act like a Jedi.”

“Master—”

“Leave me, I said,” Qui-Gon mumbled, already falling into sleep once more.

Obi-Wan turned and fled, leaving a bewildered and alarmed Anakin with his now-sleeping master.

 

* * *

 

What in all the Sith hells had he been thinking? Obi-Wan berated himself, walking blindly down the corridor. Had he been thinking? No, that seemed rather doubtful. He’d stopped thinking the moment Qui-Gon had woken and he’d been filled with his master’s perceptions, with the lethargy weighing his limbs, the drowsiness that was so unlike his usual waking, his wonder at waking at all, the jolt of pleasure that ran through him at seeing his apprentice. It was that last that had undone him, made him forget years of rigorous training and harsh instruction—the simple affirmation of his master’s love for him. He was a fool.

They were both fools, perhaps, but nothing in his life had ever frightened him so much as seeing Qui-Gon sprinting ahead of him, leaving him to pick himself up and catch up as best he could. It wasn’t even that Qui-Gon knew he would do so. They were always peripherally mindful of each other in any fight, and such an action would have been unremarkable in any other battle. But this had not been any other battle, and Qui-Gon had known that as well as he. With a powerful and unknown enemy like this one, one that was capable of forcing Qui-Gon to flee once before, he should have waited . . . and yet he hadn’t.

Because he had been protecting Obi-Wan, as though he were still a child—or a loved one.

Obi-Wan sighed. They would have to work this out over and over again, it seemed: how to balance themselves between being a partnership of two Jedi and being a couple who deeply loved each other. Eventually, Qui-Gon would have to learn to see him as an independent knight, as well, but who knew how far away that was now, after this fiasco. He’d certainly proven he wasn’t anywhere near ready for knighthood with that outburst of behavior, and his reaction when Qui-Gon had been hurt.

Chagrined and disappointed with himself, he retreated into the gardens to purge his heart in meditation. Finding a secluded spot away from the palace and hidden from the view of windows, he knelt on the dew-dampened ground and closed his eyes. He breathed in deeply, savoring the scent of living things, of the grasses and soil, the perfume of flowers, the smell of water from the nearby river, the feel of the wind against his skin, running like Qui’s fingers through his hair. Peace began to fill him as it had not since Qui-Gon had been injured. The Living Force seemed to envelope him as it rarely had before, more easily than before. He wondered briefly if this were the product of his stronger bond with his master, or of his plunge into it to save him. Whatever it had come of, it was a great comfort. It filled his heart with light, scouring out the dark places that held his fear of failure and loss, reminding him that he and Qui-Gon would never be parted, no matter what. It was a lesson he had yet to truly learn. He wondered if he ever would.

 

* * *

 

Qui-Gon was still sleeping and Anakin was curled up in the chair he had vacated when Obi-Wan reentered his master’s room and stood just inside the threshold many hours later. The younger man watched his master for a time in the faint light of the medical wing’s night, watched the muscular chest rise and fall smoothly, as it had not for a terrifying time; examined the beloved face, now lined with fatigue but peaceful and free of pain at last; appraised the long, lean body beneath the light covers, noting the loss of mass, the stillness of the limbs. Then he went to his knees, and pressed his forehead to the floor. He would stay this way until Qui-Gon bid him rise, as long as necessary.

It turned out he was there until morning, when his master woke again at his body’s usual hour, just after dawn. His own discomfort long passed into numbness, Obi-Wan became aware now—like a switch going on—of his master’s aches and stiffness, his annoyance with being tethered still to monitors and tubes, his returning energy . . . and his sudden awareness of Obi-Wan’s presence, the pleasure and concern it evoked in him. Strange to know himself that way, through his master’s feelings. Even when Qui-Gon’s usual shields closed around his consciousness, Obi-Wan found he remained peculiarly mindful of his master’s physical and mental states. Their training bond, already stronger than most—as Obi-Wan had discovered early in their relationship—had now become something quite different.

“I’d never see you there, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon’s voice was wry and gentle, some drowsiness still evident in it, but much stronger than before. “You’re hidden by the foot of the bed from here.” His voice sharpened somewhat when Obi-Wan stayed where he was. “Get up, Padawan. I can’t kiss you with your face pressed to the floor.”

Anakin stirred and woke as Obi-Wan sat up, back cracking, coming instantly alert like a small guardian, ready to defend his charge. He watched Obi-Wan warily and with a little hostility. Obi-Wan got to this feet stiffly and without his usual grace, not meeting his master’s gaze, hobbled to the bedside, and went to his knees again, or would have, had Qui-Gon not caught his braid and yanked it with far more strength than he’d had earlier.

“I said get up, Obi-Wan. Have you gone deaf?” There was a sharpness in Qui-Gon’s voice that Obi-Wan didn’t often hear, something that might almost be peevishness, if that were possible. “It’s very awkward trying to talk to you when you’re kneeling and I can’t sit up yet.”

“Forgive me, My Master,” Obi-Wan said quietly, bowing deeply, acutely aware of Anakin’s suspicion, realizing he had lost again whatever ground they had gained the day before.

“For what, little fool?”

_For what? Gods, for everything,_ he thought, standing up but keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. “My disrespect, My Master.” _For a start._ “I should not have spoken as I did yesterday.”

“Perhaps not,” Qui-Gon sighed, sounding put-upon. “But you spoke your truth from your heart. I cannot in good conscience punish you for your feelings. I think you’ve probably spent sufficient time in meditation during the night to understand the need to disengage your tongue from your emotions, however.”

“Yes, My Master,” Obi-Wan replied contritely and with as much deference as he could put into his voice, eyes remaining fixed on the floor.

“Well, Padawan? What more? Is there something I should punish you for?”

“For failing you, My Master,” he continued. Best to get it all out.

Qui-Gon raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Oh? And just how did you fail me, Padawan?”

His master was going to make him catalog it all. As if he hadn’t already, night after night, in the hours he lay awake trying to shake off the dreams. Very well, then. Start with the worst. It would be good for Anakin to see his faults too.

“I gave in to my fear and anger, My Master. When you were—when we faced the Sith.”

“Ah, then you lied to the Council, too, about killing in anger?”

Obi-Wan started. How did Qui-Gon know of the Council’s grilling? “No, My Master. But when I saw you struck down—”

“You were afraid. For me, for yourself.”

“Yes, My Master.”

“Liar. You hadn’t a micron of fear for yourself, foolish one. Did you?”

Obi-Wan paused, thinking back. “No, My Master,” he replied, surprised it was true. “Only for you.”

“And you were angry. With whom?”

Qui-Gon watched him, and waited. How like his master, Obi-Wan thought, to leave him dangling on his own petard like this, to make him extricate himself. Already, he was teaching his next padawan by rebuking his current one. Very well. He would sacrifice his dignity to be the object lesson.

“With you, My Master.”

“Yes,” Qui-Gon went on, “you were angry with your old master for running ahead of you like an over-eager padawan. Angry with him for wanting to protect you. For not acknowledging that he is past his prime and that the young boy he trained so carefully and once trounced so soundly in the sparring salles is now a powerful young man and his better. Angry with him for not waiting for you, for ignoring the years spent building a team, for getting himself killed and so endangering both you and the mission. For being, in effect, a complete and utter fool. Yes?”

“Yes, My Master.” It sounded just as disrespectful to Obi-Wan’s ears when Qui-Gon recited it as if he had said it himself. The rant, in fact, sounded very like it could have been in his own voice, as though Qui-Gon had plucked it from Obi-Wan’s thoughts.

“But you let the creature’s taunting prick you, also, Padawan. I saw that.”

It was like being caught masturbating, only worse. Obi-Wan wasn’t certain he could blush any more without the top of his head blowing off. Being branded would be less painful. Such a basic lesson, and he had failed it so miserably. He hoped Anakin was taking note. This was not a lesson he wanted anyone to have to repeat.

“Yes, My Master,” he admitted.

“So you used that anger against your enemy.”

“Yes, My Master.”

“And what happened? I haven’t yet been told this part and I don’t remember it. Obviously, you came out of it alive and in one piece.”

“Barely, My Master. I let my anger and fear get the best of me and was shoved over into the melting pit and lost my saber. I managed to grab hold of something on the side before I went in completely.”

“And the Sith creature?”

“Stood and gloated, My Master. And had every right to. I acted no better than he.”

“You defeated yourself.”

“Yes, My Master.” Gods, he’d never been so ashamed of himself. And Qui-Gon was being so very gentle with him now, which meant only that there would be hell to pay later, in exercises and training. And he’d deserve it.

“What then, my Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon said quietly, touching the young man’s elbow. “Tell me how you came to win this battle. Were you afraid for yourself then?”

It took him a moment to form the words, to work around the pain and the disappointment with himself and state the facts baldly, without melodrama or self-pity. “Yes, My Master. I suppose I was. I knew I couldn’t hold on indefinitely, but I had no weapon and no chance of defeating the thing without one. And I wanted it dead. Then I realized that—” He faltered there, remembering. “I realized you had dropped your saber when you were injured, that it still lay beside you.”

“Yes,” Qui-Gon murmured, listening intently. “What then?” he encouraged.

“I called it to me, propelled myself out of the pit, came up over the Sith’s head and swung downward as I did, and cut him in half.”

“A very prosaic account, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon replied dryly. “You will never be a storyteller. How did you succeed this time, when you had failed so badly before?”

“I let the Force guide me. I, I opened myself to it, as I should have done all—”

“As you did all the time we fought side by side, Padawan, until I ran ahead of you. Until I was injured.”

“Yes, My Master,” Obi-Wan admitted. “Until then.”

“And what else, Obi-Wan? I sense we haven’t touched on all that’s troubling you.”

“I put our relationship before my duty.”

Qui-Gon smiled. “I do seem to remember you telling me you would leave the order without me. In fact, I remember several other absurd pronouncements in your voice. Perhaps I was hallucinating at the time, however, being quite dead. Surely the Council would not have voted to make such a foolish and fickle padawan a knight.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, casting his gaze downward again, feeling himself flush painfully once more. He had said those things. He— “What?” His head snapped up suddenly and he realized Qui-Gon was smiling. No. His master was grinning. Grinning rather fiendishly. “What—what did you say?” he stammered.

“‘What did you say, _Master,_ ’ if you please, Padawan. I’d like to enjoy the sound of that whilst I still can. It was nearly the first thing out of Yoda’s mouth when he saw I was awake. Not ‘How feel you?’ or ‘Concerned for you was I,’ but ‘Voted to raise your padawan learner to knight, the Council has.’” Qui-Gon allowed himself a short chuckle, stifling it before it turned into the cough that lurked just below it.

Obi-Wan’s world reeled for a moment before restabilizing—well, almost restabilizing. He still wasn’t sure his feet were touching the ground. A large patch of it seemed to have fallen out from under him.

“They what?” he said stupidly. “After I—”

“After you conducted yourself exceedingly well in a trial far more difficult than most padawans endure. Do you know how many years it has been since a padawan earned his knighthood in battle, Obi-Wan?”

“You did,” he pointed out.

“A very long while indeed,” Qui-Gon affirmed. “But not nearly as long since it was earned in battle against a Sith Lord.”

“But I—”

“You fell prey to every Jedi’s weaknesses, Obi-Wan. As did I. I feared too much for you and was not mindful enough of my duty; I tried to protect you when I should have trusted your abilities. I let my love for you override my good sense and forged ahead where I should have worked with you, my partner and teammate. I endangered you and myself and nearly made a complete disaster of the mission. Unlike your master, you conquered your faults, and remembered and held true to your training—and won.

“And beyond that, Padawan, let us not forget that you saved my life.”

“I caused you so much pain, Qui,” Obi-Wan said quietly, remembering the agony etched on his master’s face.

“I caused it myself, my love. If there is anyone to blame, it is I. No one else. Especially not you.”

“I know you would have stayed—”

“Hush. If I had truly been ready to leave you,” he said, cupping Obi-Wan’s cheek in one large hand, “you could not have stopped me. There would have been nothing for me to come back to. You would have been left with an old cloak and your master’s saber. Did you think me so eager to desert you, my heart? You mean too much to me. Without your help, your giving of yourself, I would not be here now, and I cannot be truly happy without you, my love. I would wait for you—will wait for you when the time comes—”

Obi-Wan reached out and touched his fingers to his master’s lips. “Stop. Stop it. I won’t listen to this now. It’s too soon. It was too near a thing, Qui.”

Qui-Gon took his hand, held it against his heart. “All right, my love. I won’t speak of it then. We will live in the moment, however long it may be.”


End file.
